Sailor rewards rescuers

MARCH 22 — A man rescued by two college students after his sailboat capsized rewarded his saviors by giving them his boat.

Martin Kuhn’s sailboat overturned March 19 about 1,000 feet from shore on Langebaan lagoon, off western South Africa, the CapeArgus newspaper reported. Unable to right the boat Kuhn began swimming for shore, but struggled against the current. Tarren Smith, who is 25, and his girlfriend, Bronwen Thompson, 20, both of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, set off in their canoe and pulled Kuhn to shore with a line.

“I was utterly exhausted,” Kuhn says in the report. “All I kept thinking was how stupid, how silly that I was going to die only 300 meters from shore.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Thanks for watching!

Back on shore, Smith asked Kuhn if he and Thompson could borrow his boat, the report says. Kuhn, who has apparently vowed never to boat again, gave his boat to the couple.

“I was half dead, but Tarren asked if he could take the boat for a sail,” Kuhn says in the report. “I told him to take it, permanently. I’m never using it again.”